The War on Terrorism is a Fraud

Although the truth about the United States' war on terrorism is as plain as day, it is verboten to express it. Simply put, there would not be any terrorism to war against if Americans would stop meddling in the internal affairs of Islamic states, scale back their carte blanche support for Israel, and find some mode of transportation other than gas-guzzling automobiles. More to the point, neither the United States nor Israel, alone or together, can win a war of extermination against the Islamic world and auto emissions are destroying the ecology of the planet.

The Americans' phony-baloney war on terrorism is also bankrupting the Treasury. In addition to the hundreds of billions of dollars which American officials (colonial administrators, military personnel, contractors, mercenaries, et al.) either piss against the wall or pocket in ratholes such as Afghanistan and Iraq, tens of billions more are lavished on Israel and friendly Islamic governments each year. In addition to all of that, the 2005 budget for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a whopping $50 billion -- the equivalent of the GNP of New Zealand. Tant pis, like most of the money spent combating terrorism abroad, the lion's share of the domestic anti-terrorism budget is either squandered or pocketed by thieves at the DHS and consequently contributes little or nothing to national security.

Last week in Der Spiegel, Georg Mascolo presented a laundry list of waste and corruption at Homeland Security. For instance, a $300 million security system designed to detect explosives in shipping crates entering U. S. ports had to be scrapped when it was belatedly discovered that it was unable to tell the difference between nuclear bombs and cat litter. Another $1.2 billion was spent by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), a division of Homeland Security, on worthless technology designed to detect explosives. Even bomb-sniffing dogs have escalated in price to $10,000 apiece. As things now stand, less than ten per cent of all cargo entering U. S. airports and harbors is inspected in any shape, form, or fashion. This negligence no doubt accounts for the myriad of invasive plants and animals now wreaking havoc with the ecology as well as for the introduction of Old World zoonotic diseases.

Other questionable outlays include: $2.5 billion for sensors and drones to augment the work of vigilante Minutemen on the nation's borders; $10 billion to equip all 6,800 commercial airliners with anti-missile systems; and, $10 billion for a new computer program called US-VISIT which digitally fingerprints and photographs all foreign visitors. According to the June 22nd edition of the Washington Post, however, US-VISIT so far has been primarily responsible for snagging the crews of foreign airlines. All of this is in addition to the hiring and equipping (weapons, Blackberrys, etc.) of hundreds of thousands of new security cops and the building of new emergency command centers. CNN reported on April 20th that one such center built for the TSA outside Washington is opulently furnished with seven kitchens, a 4,200 square-foot fitness center, and $500,000 worth of art, silk plants, and other luxuries.

To this ever-growing litany of waste and corruption Mother Jones adds the following: a $500,000 cost overrun in the hiring of passenger and baggage screeners at the nation's airports; an extra $49 million paid to Boeing for a contract to do nothing more strenuous than to oversee other contracts; and, $1.5 billion in bonuses paid to TSA executives during 2003 plus another $462,000 for an awards ceremony so that they could pat themselves on the back for doing such a good job of fleecing the public and such a sorry job of protecting the country.

Finally, all of these newly-commissioned hired guns must be given something to do and this has led to the staging of a seemingly endless parade of mock anti-terrorism drills across the country which have wasted hundreds of millions of dollars and inconvenienced untold numbers of people. One recent such drill in New Jersey cost $14 million. Looking on the bright side, this is probably a small price to pay in order to keep these welfare bums with guns off the backs of ordinary citizens.

Lord Acton once sagely observed that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" and nowhere is that dictum more self-evident than in the United States' war on terrorism. Even George Bush's old ally from Texas, Clark Kent Ervin, was fired from his job as head auditor at Homeland Security because he refused to go along with the systemic waste and corruption that he found at the 180,000-man department. Former department head Tom Ridge is now a lobbyist for Savi Technology, a multinational located in Sunnyvale, CA, and is cleaning up by selling RFID technology to the Pentagon. The TSA itself has had four directors within its first three years of existence who have quit in order to shill for the security industry and its worthless high-tech gadgetry.

As egregious as all of this corruption is, it pales in comparison to the deleterious effect that the war on terrorism is having on civil liberties at home; money can be replaced but freedom once surrendered is not so easily regained. As if both the Homeland Security and Patriot acts were not bad enough in themselves, Congress last month, quietly and without any real opposition, passed the Real I. D. Act. This law will require all Americans to carry a national identity card embedded with a still to be determined assortment of sensitive biometric data and perhaps RFID as well. This card will be needed in order to get on an airplane, to apply for government services and benefits, and even to use a public computer. Starting this fall, RFID technology will be added to all U. S. passports. The enactment of this provision and, especially, the Real I. D. Act spells the end of freedom as is has been known in America. Big Brother now controls all the strings: the individual has been reduced to a mere marionette.

Nine-one-one, whether by design or cockup, has yielded an unprecedented bonanza for all the usurpers in this country. Without first scaring the shit out of everyone with nine-one-one, neither Afghanistan, Iraq, the war on terrorism, the Patriot and Homeland Security acts, nor the looting of the U. S. Treasury would have been possible. The Democrats are in this respect every bit as guilty and as corrupt as the Republicans and this is evident not only in their wholehearted support for Bush's international and domestic agendas but also in the disgraceful manner in which so-called liberal senators such as Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd have siphoned off porkbarrel Defense and Homeland Security dollars to their home states. The Israelis and their supporters in this country, whether complicit in nine-one-one or not, have nevertheless profited mightily from it in the form of $10 billion to fight terrorism, arms sales to China, Islamic states, and others, and by being given a free hand by the United States to continue their policy of plunder and extermination against the Palestinians. The mass media, stooging as usual for the capitalists, the Jews, and the Christian Right, have also been generously rewarded for their unwavering support of the war on terrorism in the form of FCC-approved consolidations and monopolizations. A few shekels have even made their way down the social ladder and into the pockets of factory workers and others charged with producing the food and equipment needed by the military and Homeland Security. Much the same can be said for the families of fallen soldiers who are profiting from greatly enhanced survivors' benefits. In America, the corruption of both body and soul is pervasive.

The most nauseating aspect of this sorry spectacle is, however, the way in which the supporters of the war on terrorism drape themselves in the flag. In doing so they have thus made patriotism synonymous with bigotry, genocide, lying and, above all, wholesale thievery. If the capitalists, Jews, and the Christian Right are all so patriotic why don't they donate their money and lives to the war effort instead of raiding the Treasury and dispatching the lower classes to die in their imperialist misadventures? The only plausible answer is that they are too cowardly and too venal. Dr. Johnson said it best all those years ago when he defined patriotism as the "last refuge of a scoundrel."

The War on Terrorism Costs Cats Their Home -- and Maybe Their Lives Also

The United States' fraudulent war on terrorism which has claimed tens of thousands of innocent lives in Afghanistan and Iraq, spawned shameful gulags in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and elsewhere, bankrupted the U. S. Treasury, undermined civil liberties at home, and provoked an unprecedented outpouring of anti-American sentiment abroad, has now extended its fascist tentacles into the feline world with the forcible eviction last week of more than twenty-three cats from a vacant hotel in the coastal North Carolina town of Jacksonville. The cats, who had been hanging their hats, so to speak, at the Onslow Inn on Marine Boulevard since its closure in April of 2001, were ostensibly evicted so that anti-terrorism teams could destroy the hotel as part of a mock terrorist attack by a car-bomber. The selection of the city-owned hotel dovetails rather conveniently however with the city's plans to build a convention center on that property. It is amazing just how often public service and patriotism go hand and glove with making a buck.

Reports in the local Jacksonville Daily News unfortunately provide little information as to the fate of the cats. It nonetheless appears that Animal Control was able to trap only six of the twenty-three cats. Three of them were given to their long-term caretaker, Tami McIlhenney, who in turn gave them to farmer in Washington County. Two of the cats were reported to be ill with the remaining one in quarantine for biting an Animal Control official. The fate of the other seventeen cats is unknown. Normally, most feral cats are considered unadoptable and are immediately exterminated after they are trapped. The only humane solution would be to relocate the unadoptable ones to either another part of town or to the countryside.

As far as the anti-terrorism drill itself is concerned, three-hundred-eighty-four firefighters, police, and EMS personnel from across North Carolina and Virginia participated in the three-day exercise, held June 3-5, and by all accounts they had a jolly good time of it. In addition to demolishing the Onslow Inn, these anti-terrorism cowboys got the thrill of operating heavy construction equipment as well as the opportunity to play hero by dragging mannequins from wrecked autos as they playacted their way through twenty-five emergency scenarios. Officials had high praise for the camaraderie and learning experience but insisted that they needed more practice, i. e. more money for their childish -- albeit deadly -- games.

The simulation reportedly cost taxpayers $60,000 which is a far cry from the $14 million that New Jersey officials pissed away on a similar exercise last month. The North Carolinians should ask Congress for more money; they are working -- if one may dare call this bullshit work! -- cheap. Of course, when it comes to corruption, New Jersey officials have never been known to take a backseat to anyone. In one New Jersey burg last summer a thunderstorm knocked out electrical power and threw the entire city into utter chaos. The Police Department did not even have enough patrolmen to direct traffic.

Confronted with a real-life terrorist attack it is hard to believe that Homeland Security personnel would behave any differently than did their boss, George W. Bush, on 9-1-1, i. e., run like hell to save their own skins. Sadly, in order that all the anti-terrorism cowboys and corrupt politicians in Jacksonville could get their rocks off and collect their fat welfare checks the Onslow Inn cats had to lose their home and, tant pis, possibly even their lives.

U. S. Declares War on Animal Rights' Advocates and Environmentalists

The political and media elite, stooging and pimping as usual for the capitalists, continue to cash in on 9-1-1. Not only have they used the attacks on the Word Trade Center and the Pentagon to line their pockets with untold billions of taxpayers' dollars and money borrowed from abroad (the U. S. Treasury is technically broke) and as a pretext to exterminate Afghans, Iraqis, and Palestinians, but they have now set their sights upon destroying not only civil liberties but free expression at home as well. At the top of their hit list are animal rights' advocates and environmentalists. That is precisely what John Lewis of the FBI told the U. S. Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, chaired by Republican James Inhofe of Oklahoma, on May 18th.

Of particular interest to the FBI and Homeland Security are the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), the Earth Liberation Front (ALF), and Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), all of whose dedicated members risk their lives on a daily basis in order to rescue tortured and abused animals from vivisectors and to save the planet from greedy, unscrupulous capitalists and consumers alike. The Feds' attempt to suppress all opposition to their thievery, genocide, and corruption is not limited to these groups but, according to the World Socialists' web site (www. wsws.org), also extends to Greenpeace, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Quakers' American Friends Service Committee, Native American groups, and the homeless advocacy group, Food Not Bombs. David Martosko of the anti-animal rights, anti-environmental, anti-public health Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) beseeched the Inhofe Committee to also investigate and revoke the tax-exempt status of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Physicians' Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the Fund for Animals, In Defense of Animals, and the New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance -- all of which he accused of providing financial support for the ALF, ELF, and SHAC. Of course, being the twenty-four karat hypocrite that he is Martosko does not see anything wrong with the CCF taking money from every scumbag animal abuser (factory farmers, restaurants, vivisectors, etc.), environment destroyer, and junk food and cheap booze purveyor on the planet.

The quick transformation of the war against al-Qaeda to an all-out attack upon animal rights' advocates and environmentalists is not surprising in that it was a scant twenty years ago that James Watt fired the opening potshot while hiding behind Christian doomsday prophecy. Moreover, the United States' war on Islam has always been a sham from the get-go. If America would stop propping up Arab dictators in order to plunder their countries' oil reserves and simultaneously scale back its carte blanche support for Israel, Islamic terrorism would lose most of its raison d'etre. Of course, Americans would have to find some other mode of transportation other than the automobile but the oil is going to run out sooner or later no matter what. The war on terrorism serves only to enrich its protagonists, to kill the animals, destroy the environment, and to deliver a coup de grace to freedom in the United States.

In singling out animal rights' advocates and environmentalists as terrorists, the Federal Government is conspicuously silent on such well-known hate groups as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), neo-Nazis, and anti-government militias. The Cubans, Jews, Irish, and the Catholic Church also receive a free pass.

Bush the First pardoned world-renown terrorist Orlando Bosch in 1990 and he has been living high-on-the-hog in Miami ever since. His partner in the 1976 bombing of Cuban airliner which claimed seventy-three lives, former CIA operator Luis Posada Carriles, slipped into the country back in March and was not jailed until recently when international outcry forced Bush the Second's hand. Posada, who has been linked, inter alia, to the assassination of President Kennedy, the car-bomb murders of Pinochet opponent Orlando Letelier and American Ronni Moffitt on September 21, 1976 in Washington, the bombing of several Cuban hotels, an assassination attempt in 2000 on Fidel Castro in Panama, and Operation Condor, will most likely either be released or provided with sanctuary in a U. S.-friendly country. Sleazy cutthroats like Bosch, Posada, the Bushes, and the CIA stick together like congealed feces and smell just as bad.

In addition to their crimes of genocide and wholesale thievery directed against the Palestinians, the Jews have been openly committing thousands of acts of terrorism in the United States since the late 1960s. In 1985, the Jewish Defense League (JDL) bombed the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's Santa Ana, California office and in doing so murdered the group's regional director, Alex Odeh. The perpetrators then fled to Israel in order to escape prosecution. In 2002, JDL members Irv Rubin and Earl Krugel were arrested while preparing to bomb a Los Angeles mosque and the southern California offices of U. S. Congressman Darrell Issa (a Lebanese-American who was the architect behind the movement to recall Gray Davis). From the late 1960s into the 1990s the JDL bombed and harassed Russian diplomats and business people living and working in New York City on a daily basis. Among their victims were: Aeroflot's offices on Forty-Fifth Street and Fifth Avenue, a Russian bookstore at Twentieth Street and Fifth Avenue, the Russian Mission to the United Nations on East Sixty-Seventh Street, and the diplomats' housing compound in Riverdale in the Bronx. They also used to attack Jews for Jesus with stun guns outside the Forty-Second Street Library. The Russian visitors' persistent pleas for police protection were ignored by the bigoted and corrupt administration of Ed Koch which turned a blind eye to the criminality of its fellow tribesmen. More recently, unidentified Jews have threatened to firebomb Presbyterian churches during services if that denomination goes ahead with plans to divest from companies doing business in Israel.

To this litany of crimes can also be added the politically-motivated Jewish sex scandals (Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, Gary Condit and Chandra Levy, and James McGreevey and Golan Cipel), spying on the United States (two cases involving "Scoop" Jackson's office in the 1970s and the 1980s, the Jonathan Pollard affair and, now, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)-Pentagon scandal), and Israeli nuclear proliferation (South Africa and possibly other states). Then there is the case of the Jewish immigrants from Russia who come to this country to gobble up scarce public housing and to wallow in welfare (while American citizens are forced to sleep in the street and go penniless) as well as to commit all sorts of crimes. Jews also employ terrorist-like tactics to silence and drive from office critics such as Representatives Earl Hilliard of Alabama and Cynthia McKinney of Georgia.

As far as the Irish are concerned, both Sein Fein and Ian Paisley's supporters are allowed not only to enter the country but to raise funds in order to finance their terrorist activities. When Islamic-Americans do the same thing they are jailed and their bank accounts seized. Likewise, the Catholic Church behaves like a terrorist organization in that its rhetoric promotes gay bashing, the harassment of women frequenting abortion clinics, and the murder of abortionists.

In conclusion, as far as the United States Government is concerned there are clearly good domestic terrorists and bad domestic terrorists. A good terrorist is defined as anyone or any group which works to promote the agenda of the powers that be, while a bad terrorist is anyone or any group which has the temerity to oppose the powers that be. In-groups and out-groups, winners and losers, it is as simple and as hypocritical as that. Meanwhile, the real terrorists in this country are the capitalists, the Jews, and the Christian Right who hide behind the mantle of fighting terrorism in order to steal, murder, pollute, and subjugate the entire earth and all of its inhabitants with impunity. The defining characteristic of this die Achse des Bosen is its members' total unwillingness to ever tell the truth about anything.